Review of dB/dX

Title: dB/dX
Author: C P1R8
Year: 2023
Pages: 31
Rating: ★★★★★

I'm stuck, I don't know how to review dB/dX. It has no art. It claims to be a derivative of many B/X games but isn't. I don't know anything about the author except for the website Save vs Ennui and a thread on Reddit. It's version 1.0 and not all of it has been playtested. 

So... anything I've claimed to enjoy in the past does not exist in this product. Normally, that would not bode well for a review, but by evading my normal likes it has a very charming and engaging feel. I've flipped through the book page by page and realized it does have everything I like. 

This title is meant for web access and in being set up for that, it is excellent and makes a lie of my assertion that there is no art. Nowadays, we get glitzy full-color, glossy coffee table books as basic gaming material. This ain't it. The layout is sparse and elegant in a way only a web product can do. This is artful in its choice of fonts, symbols, layout, white space, and careful use of color. 

Bonus art stars, all around. 

I've already said the title is brilliant in a post and a comment to the author. I love the play on dx/dy, "the derivative of y was taken with respect to x". Here are the nuts and bolts of everything in dB/dX. Each and every section mirrors a great number of OSR products, except virtual every rule and mechanic has been reworked for the sake of brevity and simplicity. It creates this itchy feeling in my brain, where I feel like some sort of new idea has been unlocked and processed. 

It reminds me of one of my favorite OSR booklets, The Moldy Unicorn. 

I took a couple of hours to play around with this ruleset and it only increased my wonder at this elegant little book. 

There are no classes or races, just levels with one major twist. Characters have a background profession, something left over from their life before adventuring. The book lists a whopping 216 backgrounds, which impressed the hell out of me as I wrote a whole book on this one subject in twice as many pages with one-quarter of the professions.  

I have to be honest, I really dug into the character creation and combat mechanics over all other things. Since the whole system is classless and raceless, having good character-building and combat systems is necessary. While I know the author meant to omit demi-humans, nothing bad happens if you use them. You can have knights, peasants, dwarves, elves, or whatever you like. You'll only break a few things here and there but that can be patched over with any number of other rulesets. This happens a fair bit with OSR products, it's almost a design feature rather than a bug. 

One of the great features of this set is the imposition of morale on the PCs. It really changes the game dynamics. You exit combat rather quickly, so players had better be on their toes. 

I had a lot of fun with just the character and combat sections, but reading through the rest of the book just reinforces the author's original idea. This set can be a mini-hex crawl as much as a dungeon delve. Nearly every section of the old Basic-Expert set appears with a simplifying twist.

I really loved having this ruleset bust my rating system. In case the HTML broke, I give this five of 5 gold stars, a rating level reserved for just a handful of wonderful books. 

Session 2 - Bounty on the Beach and a Ghoulish Discovery

Session two covered two days, which brings us to the 3rd day on the island. We break off from the action at midday of day 3. 

The party rested up uneventfully the first night and is trying to figure out what to do next. Not having horses has them hamstrung. They have too much equipment to carry and some of it like the saddles is pointless to take along with them. Bartholomew, Masha, Alex, and the two sailors are charged with determining what will go and what will stay. 

While they are busy with that, the rest of the party splits up into two teams, red and blue. Red Team is the Cleric Garven and William the Ranger. Alice the Elf, Rolf the Fighter, and Gerwinder the Paladin make up Blue Team. They decide to ditch most of their gear and set out exploring to the south by two different routes. 

And much to my embarrassment, I realized that I accidentally set up the party on the map of Sardinia, not Corsica. I scrolled too far south. Oh... I'll just roll with it.  

Each small hex is 1.2 miles and the weather is good. It's been cloudy and warm for winter, in the 60s (or 16° C). Since this map is based on a real place, I have simply been looking at the real weather in Palau, Sardinia. Why reinvent the wheel?  

Red Team moves to the grasslands at a slow pace. On the way south, they encounter nothing. Blue Team moves down the beach and onto the grasslands. The blue team has an animal encounter right away. They notice two strange-looking donkeys or mules following them. They are unable to approach them too closely but determine they must be some sort of feral ponies. 

On the way home, Red Team encounters Ezekiel the warhorse. The animal can speak to humans but is rather closed-lipped about how he got there. As the two teams return to camp, an odd thing happens. The feral ponies start to follow Ezekiel. The warhorse advises the Paladin that there is a herd of ponies and he has been trying to avoid the beasts since he got here. 

That of course begs the question of how he got here. 

Ezekiel tells the party that the horse sling fell overboard as the sailors tried to take it down. Two sailors went in the water with it. The horse jumped in to rescue them. Having done his duty honorably, he was annoyed when the men walked off northwest. 

Back at camp, everyone greets their newest adventurer. Bartholomew and the sailors are super excited to see the extra pack animals and tried to lasso one of the ponies. The thief took a kick to the chest for his trouble. 

While Garvin quickly ministers Barth's chest injury, Alex, Alice and William assess the ponies. They are too small to ride and too skittish to capture. It's an odd standoff as the ponies seem to be attracted to Ezekiel but too scared to approach the adventurers. 

The party settles in for night two on the island, no further along than when they landed. But they discover quite a few things about each other. It turns out that both sailors were rowers elevated to seamen. Sammy likes to fish and the George likes to whittle. They were leading the mules because neither is very adept at seamanship, yet. 

Ezekiel shares that the other two sailors took off towards the northwest. Gerwinder explains that the horse is being literally accurate. The last time the horse saw them, they probably walked exactly direction up the beach. 

Alex discovers that Sammy and Alice can sing and the music brings the ponies closer. Alice was able to toss some fruit at them and they tolerated it. Once to food was gone and the music stopped, they retreated. They hope the routine will tame the ponies, but they have their doubts. 

The day three plan has the party moving westward and then south. It wasn't the plan, but the two missing sailors are without food and water. Also, the party has more food than they can easily carry. The Ranger and Theif want to hang it in a tree. They can see the foliage of shrubs and small trees to the southwest. They'll be moving pretty slowly due to the load, but if they can find the other sailors, they can share their supplies and load. If not, they'll cache the extra food. 

I am using the item-based encumbrance tracker for OSE. The party is trying to tote their personal gear, two tents, and 24 saddlebags full of extra food and supplies. I've decided that each individual saddlebag is a little smaller than a backpack so two together are about the size of 1 and 1/2 backpacks. Each mule can carry 4 or one of the tents. Ezekiel can carry two saddlebags and a rider. 

Before setting out, they fill the rowboat with the saddles, extra baggage cover it with the tent, and rope it down. The sailors were great at this. 

They have 24 saddlebags. The equines are carrying 10, the two sailors are carrying 4. That leaves 10 extra bags. They leave the remainder at the campsite with the intention of reaching the stand of trees and shrubs by midday. This should leave time for them to cache some food in a tree and return for the rest. However, the party is of the opinion they may not want to or have to. 

They make it 3.5 of the 5 miles to the shrublands before trouble occurs. William spots footprints leading south. He gleans that two men passed through the area at a run. The terrain is undulating, so they don't see anyone in the distance even though it's grasslands. 

In a low spot, Ezekiel freezes and Misha lets out a shout of warning before unleashing a magic missile. Five men are approaching from behind the party, the magic missile strikes the first to little effect. Alice, Barth, and Alex pull their bows and step in front of Misha. The sailors form a second barrier between Misha and the attackers. The 4 fighter types have to turn around and rush back to defend the rear of the party, with Gerwinder and Ezekiel looping wide to avoid missile fire. 

In the first round, a flurry of arrows and missiles hits three of the men, but none drop. They are approaching fast. Misha and Barth with the two sailors start backpedaling. Alice advances with Rolf, Alex, Garvin and, William. The Paladin is just out of striking range. 

In the second round, the Paladin surges forward and slashes one of the men. As one, they turn on her. As the party rushes to her aid she yells out, "Ghouls!" Since all of the ghouls have attacked, the party runs straight into them. They down 3 ghouls as the horse stands over Gerwinder. 

Round three starts in a tie for the initiative. Alice barks, "Get back!" but no one listens. Alex and Barth have moved to each side hoping to angle an arrow into the ghouls next round. Everyone gets hit. All of the ghouls are down, but Rolf flops to the ground paralyzed moments after the last ghoul falls. 

Bartholomew makes an executive decision and unloads the tent mule so that Rolf and Gerwinder can be carried to the shrublands. He will stand guard over it with Alice. Once the party makes camp, they can come back for them. Garvin the Cleric makes only one change to this declaration, he will also stay with the Theif and Elf. 

This brings us to midday of day 3. We'll pick back up next session. 

Session 1 - A Very Bad Day at the Beach

I have the party all set. There are eight 4th level characters. The quick details are: 

1. William, Ranger
2. Gerwinder, Paladin
3. Alex, Bard
4. Rolf, Fighter
5. Misha, Magic User
6. Garvin, Cleric
7. Alice, Elf
8. Bartholomew, Theif

Their goal is to land on the beach of the island and move south, tracing the shoreline. They are looking for furred animals, freshwater sources, and any trails or paths that hint at the location of the shrine of Terminus. Their ship, the Zephyr will check in on them from time to time. The captain of the ship has found a nice place to put the explorers down, a rock shelf with very shallow water. Due to the wind and currents, the captain has to put the starboard side of the ship closest to land. 

The party briefly explored the beach while a group of 4 sailors brought their gear to shore using a large rowboat. Two of the sailors were left on the shore to watch the gear while everyone else waded out to the ship to help with the mules and horses. 

The ship used a sling to lower 4 mules down to the water. It took two people to settle the mules and get them wading ashore. Gerwinder and Rolf awaited the first horse, Ezekiel the warhorse to be lowered to the water. 

At that moment, the crew on the deck sees a surge of water coming towards them. There are sea serpents bearing down on the party in the water. 

Since no one is surprised due to the range, the captain bellows orders to raise the anchor and drop the oars in the water. Bedlam ensues because of the men in the water near the ship, the horses on the deck and the sling is still in the way of the oars. Only the port-side rowers get into the water. The ship is backward with the port side facing out to sea. 

The party loses the first round of initiative. The first sea serpent lashes out at the third mule but accidentally bites a sailor between it and the mule. Satiated, it turns away as the party is knocked to and fro. The first two mules make for the beach taking Garvin the Cleric and Bartholomew the Theif with them. Masha is pushed away by surge while the fourth mule and Elf use the same push to move away from the beasts.  

The Ranger, Fighter, Paladin, and Bard splash forward to meet the second sea monster with swords. Everyone else tries to get out of the water with the mules. 

The party loses initiative again and the sea serpent tries to devour the mule. The mule takes 4 points of damage and cannot land a hit. Only Rolf and Alex are in range to strike and manage to roll a 20 and 19, doing a total of 11 points of damage. 

The Serpent is hell-bent on taking the mule and stays in place giving Gerwinder and William time to close. It mistakes the sailor as an attacker and bites him. Onboard the ship, the captain gets the crew moving and the ship rows backward and sideways a bit.  

The mule thrashes away while the serpent finishes off the sailor. The Bard and Ranger miss, while the Paladin hits with another 20 for 7 more points of damage. Rolf barely manages to hit but rolls enough damage to kill the sea serpent. The first serpent has disappeared in the distance while the third is confused by the thrashing oars and combat. 

The last sea serpent rushes behind the party and they manage to wack it a few times. 

The sea serpent manages to grab the mule but takes a series of fatal blows for its effort. 

The tired party stumbles ashore. While not mentioned in the above notes, the party has taken minor damage from being battered by the surf. They don't have a lot of good options as the ship has pulled back away from the shelf. The first sea serpent is circling the corpses in the water. No one wants to wander out there and the ship doesn't have any weaponry. The crew does have slings and bows, but the crew is not confident in their own abilities considering the serpent could attack the ship and sink it. The bard and ranger have taken a couple of potshots with arrows, but it's ineffective. 

The captain and the explorers have a frustrating shouting conversation across the water. The explorers will take the two sailors with them south. They will leave the horses on the ship. The party takes stock of its resources and realizes how lucky they were. No one was wearing armor in that fight. 

They have their supplies, three mules, and two extra sailors in tow. The mules were meant to carry two large tents, water, and food, plus some equipment like lanterns, oil, firewood, and a handful of spears. Additionally, they have 8 saddles, 8 saddlebags full of supplies, and a rowboat. It's beginning to look like they have too much stuff. 

They decide to set a watch for the afternoon and set up one 8 man tent for the night. Since there are two extra members of the party, setting watches is easy and the night passes uneventfully. 

By morning, things are looking better. Bartholomew, Alex, and the two sailors have cobbed together a 3 or 4 man tent out of horse blankets, a pair of reasonably serviceable backpacks from some saddlebags, and hatched a plan to cache the saddles and extra supplies with one of the two 8 man tents. 

Two serpents are circling in the sea. Maybe more because the corpses are all gone. The ship nowhere to be seen.  

Also on the downside, someone has named all of the mules Barth-a-mule. The Bard pointed at the Paladin and she muttered an ungodly oath that it wasn't her. She also roundly curses her armor and the lack of a horse. These are real problems, she can't walk fast in plate armor and they have far too much gear for 10 men and 3 mules to carry easily. 

The Cleric, Theif, and Bard urge the party to stay in place one more day and night while they try to get a handle on all of the gear they have to transport.

Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons

Boxed sets are my gateway drug

I generally don't do 5th Edition reviews because I don't play 5th Edition much. There is a lot to like or dislike about 5th Edition. 

If you are just starting out, there are a ton of good reasons to jump into 5e. The main reason is rather simple. It's approachable and readily available to the new player. The artwork and mechanics are great and they are nice set of rules for this day and age. My son loves it and has started his gaming collection with new set of rules, which I purchased for him. 

One of my reasons for not using it is, I have collection of books going back to the Red Box set and beyond. My interest started with the Chainmail rules and expanded from there. I've filled bookshelves with games I will never play. I have an intuitive understanding of what all the major rules are in these sets. Yet another edition of games really doesn't add to what I have. 

E5, Labyrinth Lord and BECMI?
Your not kidding, eh.

The fact is, if you started at point x, you probably already an inkling of what rules x+1 would do to your gameplay. Way back in AD&D, I already had the concept of Feats and Skills as a house rule. I am not some sort of illuminary predicting the changes of the rules. Nearly everyone who played an older edition of D&D foresaw the power of the mechanics and started making changes to their gameplay as house rules. Many of these changes became standard features of the new editions. And many house rules didn't pass muster and were left behind. Here is a list of my house rules, most of which are dubious. 

As of this post, I am at 1030 post on fun and games. Lately, I've been exploring 5th Edition wondering which of any of these things will become the next generation's Red Box, Keep on the Borderlands or Isle of Dread. 

I have no idea, but I'd like to explore. And I hope you will join me. In the next series of posts, I'll be reviewing some of the 5th Edition rules. I figure this will run its course in less than 10 posts or less than 1% of everything else I've written. Because, I am that numbers guy.  

Review of Into the Wild (Kickstarter Complete!)

Updated 4/29/2021. I got my digital copy and ordered my print on demand. This update changes very little, except to add the excellent artists names, page count and to provide links to DriveThruRPG. This one has also been added to my 5 of 5 star listings. Once I get my POD, it might shift to five gold stars.  

June Update - I need to re-review this based on the hardcopy I have. 

As happenstance would have it, I have been granted a couple of great opportunities this week. I have yet to back to a kickstarter and at no time in my decade or so on the web have I been able to review a product that is still in production. On Thursday morning, I got the chance to do both. God, I hope I don't screw this up. 

Let's have some transparency. Every since I was a kid, I have collected books. Not just any books, but galleys. These are preproduct books sent out to authors and editors so they may do their final proof before printing. Sometimes, they have to do this several times. This is essentially What Todd Leback has sent to me. I feel really comfortable with this format even though it is never something that you would see on a store shelf. 

Second, I have tested, playtested and been a part of study groups on a lot of consumer products. A ridiculously amount of products, everything from flossers to cameras to wargames. There is a reason why I am the way I am. :) 

And item C: I dropped a $20 on the Kickstarter. During this review, I am receiving updates from Kickstarter. I am ignoring those and focusing entirely on the presented copy for information. This will cause this review to age poorly in the next 28 days or so. Please check out Kickstarter for updates. (This project is done, you can view the Kickstarter, but I doubt further updates will be forthcoming.) 

Title: Into the Wild
Publisher: Old-School Essentials
Author: Todd Leback
Editor: Brian Johnson
Layout: BJ Hensley
Cartography: Todd Leback, Aaron Schmidt, Adrian Barber
Cover Art: Jen Drummond (jendart.com) 
Interior Art Adrian Barber, Dan Smith, Carlos Castilho
Artists: Is currently a stretch goal. TBA.
Year: 2021
Pages: 216
Rating: 5 of 5 stars. 

So, what am I reviewing: a Kickstarter or a book? Definitely, the book and only the book. Reviews, especially of unfinished products are best done by the numbers. Or the main questions: 

• Who is the author of the book?
• What is the idea of the book?
• Was the idea delivered effectively?
• What are the strengths?
• What are weaknesses of the book?

You'll notice that none of those things have to do with stars or ratings, and unlike my other reviews I have not offered a star rating at the outset. And I might not do so by the end. I have only had 48-72 hours to review the material so I have spent most of my time digesting rather than playing or planning. 

Todd Leback is the author of a series of books on Hexcrawling. He has also written on topics such as domain building and authored a one page dungeon. He started playing with the Red Box D&D set and enjoys the OSR style of play with family. This is his second Kickstarter and he runs a great Patreon page which provides 5-8 pages of Hex based content to his patrons every 3-4 weeks. 

Previously, I reviewed Mr. Leback's Hexcrawl Basics. 

The premise of Into the Wild is to bring several other publications together in one book and link those concepts to kick an OSR style campaign up to the level of domain play. Into the Wild is a 200+ page book which marries hexcrawling to domain building. These ideas came from many of his previous works, but this is not simply a compilation of text. These separate works are merged together seamlessly and are amplified. While some parts of the text are recognisable as being from prior works, they have been edited in away that allows the reader to flow from one idea that was a single book to another, which is different from a compiled collection or an omnibus. 

The book is based on Old School Essentials, but that merely means a tiny bit of tweaking is needed to adapt it to other OSR rulesets. 

The intent is use hexcrawling to engage players into a more complex style of play by bringing domain building into the fold and expanding on it with additional features that would interest high level characters. Mr. Leback does this in 200+ pages with  maps created in Worldographer. While this document was offered to me "with no art", it contains over a dozen maps which are illustrative in nature. Additionally, he also includes many tables and charts to simply and clarify the ideas in each section. 

Like Mr. Leback's previous works, copious examples highlight the various details of hexcrawling, weather, domain management, wealth and character options. This is one of it's strengths. Another good point is the fact that it required a great amount of table time to develop these ideas. Into the Wild shows it's table time very well. It is the product of many years of work and playtime by both the author and his audience. He has merged player feedback with his writing style to produce tight product based on the idea of play. 

One weakness of this work is that it introduces new ways of using DM provided data, which is an inherent flaw of all hexcrawling activities. It's not something you can simply drop into a campaign mid-stream without some sort of introduction. That is not a terribly big deal because hexcrawling and domain building are now "things" that players will understand. 

You could use Into the Wild for low level characters to engage in all the guts and glory type things adventurers do while also running a domain level campaign where a handful of high level characters interact the lesser characters on a larger, more regal scope. This style of play puts the players very close to the DM when it comes to planning, while still maintaining the general mechanics of D&D. 

All and all, this is an excellent book that will only be improved by the stretching nature of a Kickstarter. I look forward to seeing the completed work. 

Inspiration

When I was 10 or 12, Dungeons and Dragons was a big thing but the content was fairly limited. Not just the sheer number of modules, but the tone and such were limited by the player's personal preferences. Out of dozens choices only a handful leave an impression. Face it, it's really a chocolate, vanilla or strawberry choice. We like what we like for no other reason. 

This creates a cycle were the player was introduced to the module, then they presented the module as a DM to replay. The story gains additional replayability through this introducing it to others. I can repeat by placing a twist on the source material so that it is disguised. By the time you have your own kids, you see the cycle start again. It is very much like some beloved concept such as drawing, woodworking, camping, Disney, etc. to be passed down.  

The activity is the same, but different depending on where you are in the cycle. This naturally leads to the idea of maps, guides, handbooks, t-shirts. I find it amusing that there could or would be some sort of insignia, brochure or mission patch for an old module because the are simply loved and repeated. 

That is the source of inspiration for these images and my love of the OSR. 

The difference between 6 and 10 is not very great in terms of time, so I recall my bedroom decorated with classic Disney posters, 60's and 70's baseball pennants and other object de art which were done in these odd colors and styles. It's no wonder that I have associate these images with those conjured by D&D. 

OSR OCD. Witches Brew.

Back in my campaign on the Peninsula of Plenty, I had a coven of witches. These characters were straight up magic users that operated with a pack like mentality and a specific political goal. In order to give them enough power to stand toe to toe with the party physically, they needed to be overpowered. They are 3rd, 5th and 7th level. 

Since the party was 3rd level or less, the witches operated with some serious societal restrictions. The Coven of Ash adhered to "The Old Ways", which was unrestricted authoritarian rule. Most of the Empire is not on board with this, including the Emperor. 

Their visible presence invokes terror, so they move at night or invisibly. Most of the tactics involve terrorizing people with non-attacks so as to maintain their invisibility. Say, simply surrounding a target, pinching or poking a victim is enough to scare the target into doing what they want. The Coven of Ash are not your typical witches because they're totally unbalanced. They are supporting an authoritarian regime which doesn't even exist anymore. They are basically the Sheriff of Nottingham with magic. 

It worked well enough, but now that I got my hands on Timothy S. Brannan's Witch themed books, I can see how witches can be better than mere magic users with quirks. I just have three of the books in the series: The Basic Witch: The Pumpkin Spice Witch Tradition, Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games and Cult of Diana: The Amazon Witch for Basic Era Games. 

To be super honest, I was attracted to the series by the cover art of Cult of Diana and The Mara Witch but I find the one "joke" book, The Pumpkin Spice Witch to be my favorite. It's all the same author, so I don't know if it's the tone or the generic nature of the Basic Witch which appeals to me. 

I've also made the mistake of printing all three books and storing them in one binder. I find myself flipping from one to the other. I play this weirdo mashup of B/X and AD&D, so I don't really notice minor differences in purpose, which I am sure is there. 

Anyway, I am getting ready to roll up a couple of witches and introduce them into my B2 campaign. The players hopped right past the hermit and a good witch seems to a suitable, player friendly substitute.  

Current situation: Reading The Cult of Diana

I’m on laundry duty tonight. However, I’ve got a good book to read. I have Timothy S. Brannan’s The Cult of Diana - The Amazon Witch Tradition. 

I’m posting from my phone, so this is painful and short. 

The book is a shockingly compact 25 pages but has no lacks. It was designed for Blueholme Prentice rules, nice set of retro clone rules. The art is very nice. Ok. I love the style, but don’t want to oversell you. (I have a tendency of doing that with artwork.) Some of the art appears between the columns like newer editions of D&D, while harkening back to the old school style of first Books. Tables are neatly shaded in white and blue for maximum readability. The spells are all new and suitably themed. I was particularly taken with the spell “Surocco”. It reminds me of the Bora, a gale force wind from the Alps, which helped Theodosius' forces defeat his enemies at The Battle of the Frigidus River. It strikes me as something very preternatural something only a witch could brew up. 

OSRx - Take That!

I honestly don't know what OSR stands for. Is it "Revival"? Is it "Renaissance"? I noticed that "Old School Rx" or "OSRx" ends in the abbreviation used by doctors for "Prescription" or more simply, "take that".

You know what you can do for the OSRx?

Right now, you can order order a charity bundle from DriveThruRPG to support those facing the fires in Australia. I've round up all 5 themes, so click away:

Fantasy Core & Settings $19.95
Starships & Posthumanity $29.95
Modern & Urban Horror $19.95
Fantasy Supplements $29.95
Capes, Grit, and Gunsmoke $19.95

EDIT January 22nd, 2020: The folks at DrivethruRPG have added 3 more at $9.99 price point for an even better value. Here is a link to the whole category. I'd also like to thank Jeremy over at Thought Eater Blog, host of The Frothcast podcast and all of the others who reshared this post. What a great community we have.

What if you don't want to do that or don't have ready cash? Linking to or subscribing to a blog could help a lot. The collapse of G+ robbed the community of the means of communication and we scattered. Every blog that shares links is a defense against that sort of collapse. My suggestion is to add those blog rolls, but also sign yourself up for https://campaignwiki.org/osr/. This "blog" serves up dozens if not hundreds of blogs in one feed. It's great. If you already did that, why not check out some of the people who provide content?

As with blogs, podcasts are great. There are so many out there, I don't even know where to begin. You could begin by subscribing to some of the podcast I linked to in the right hand column or share your own favorites in the comments below.

There are all kinds of communities to join, too. I like MeWe best, but there are so many to choose from. Check a few out.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, play a game and do a review. Post it up some place. Without you insight, the community won't know what is good and why. Have an opinion and share it.

Rx... take that.

OSR Character Sheet

The people over at Cirsova have a new OSR character sheet for commercial use. That pretty cool. 

I thought of creating an OSR sheet, but 99% of my rational of uploading my AD&D character sheet was nostalgia. I've been using this particular sheet for decades and though other people would be amused by is simplistic design values. My second version was done on the oldest software I could find to continue the sight gag. 

This sheet is pretty cool because it has those nostalgia values AND it's free for commercial use. That super generous. If I do a OSR one shot, I'll totally use this sheet.

You can download my file at DriveThruRPG using the links on the upper right. 

The Housekeeping and Distraction Post

My first experience with podcasts was way back in 2006, with the Astronomy Cast podcast. Hosted by Dr. Pamela Gay and Fraser Cain, it was and still is a fascinating journey into not only Astronomy but the power of the web.

With that first episode on Pluto, I was hooked on podcasts.

I skipped around here and there looking for new material and have been through dozens of podcasts.

Lately, I have picked up on the OSR type podcasts and feel that my handle on the hobby is much better for it. You can mouse over each picture for the podcast name (including Astronomy Cast above) and click it as a link to the associated blog for each Podcast. I'm not going in any order, except the last podcast.

The first 'cast is by Vb Wyrde and he talks about game systems and creation. It's kind of heady stuff as he really digs into the hows and whys of various system's mechanics. This is a companion piece to his websites.

Next up is the Playing Wrong Podcast, with the lovable wizard pig. I like to think of it as the Cow-Dog of the OSR. This week's entry is about social media vs. content, which is kind of a big deal these days. On a tangential but parallel line of though, Dyson Logos has been talking about his experience on Facebook, which is not the most optimal platform to work from. You can also check out the link above labeled "The Tek" to see all kinds of statics about my website and downloads. 

The Red Dice Diaries is an excellent podcast which should have decidedly British slant, but actually is rather cosmopolitan in nature. I love John's ideas and point of view, plus he brings in a collection of guests to talk about their experiences at the tabletop. The episodes I found most enlightening were ones on a game that I always wanted to pick up, called Burning Wheel.

A rather new podcast is SAFCOcast. It covers Gurps and Traveller and a whole lot more. I like this one as it is hosted by a group rather than an individual. I don't get a lot time to play and I find this podcast satisfies my Science Fiction itch. I just wish I had more time to play some of those other games.

Maybe, some day.

Who has the time to read every blog under the sun? Oddly, the Thought Eater does. Take a listen to Jeremy's weekly Wednesday round up of the blog-o-verse. Jeremy is comprehensive, you can have two weeks of content to read over from just one listen.

Also, on Friday's he a short, 5ish minute show where he lets fly with his latest thoughts on the OSR.

Do Jeremy, me, and you a favor. If you run a podcast or blog, put your name on it. Or at least a good handle. It helps us find you.

The last OSR Podcast has a special place in my heart. It's called Blogs on Tape. It is intended to as readings of the Best of Blogs.

What I see is accessibility. I've toyed with the idea of a podcast myself, but what I really want is a presentation so that people with poor vision can access blogs in the easiest, most natural format, the human voice. No place does Blogs on Tape mention this as a priority, but it is what they are doing. I love it.

If you want some insight as to why I would want this for my site, take a look at this semi-autobiographical short story I wrote. Most of it is fiction, but much of it is true.

If you want your blog or podcast featured here, feel free to shoot me a note at phil(dot)viverito(@)gmail(period)com or add a comment below. I'd love to add your content. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the wonderful Old School RPG Planet which reblogs your content. It is an excellent idea.

I apologize for the mess in the right column, I'm trying to add a graphical podcast list over there and ran out of energy. There is only so much coffee I can drink, and I need to stop casting from hit points.